[FE8] Fire Emblem: Dust to Dust

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Man, born from dust, was strong, wise, and resourceful.But he was born into an unforgiving world.The soulless creatures of Grimm threatened to return Man's brief existence to the void.However, even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change,

and in time Mans passion, resourcefulness and ingenuity

led them to the tools that would help even the odds.

This power was appropriately named, Dust.

Natures wrath in hand, Man lit their way through the darkness,

and in the shadows absence came strength, civilization, and most importantly, life.

...or so the legends say.

(Thanks to Eldi13 for the title screen background)

Intro-----Fire Emblem: Dust to Dust is a FE8/RWBY crossover hack, set in a Fire Emblem version of Remnant.

Despite living in a hostile land, stalked by the soulless creatures of Grimm, the world at large has been at peace for generations. Everything changes when the White Fang, a once peaceful Faunus rights organization, attacks the kingdom of Schnee without warning. This sudden act of terrorism will ignite a fire that consumes all of Remnant, and lay bare the terrible truth of their world.

Demo patch now available!Consists of one demo-exclusive chapter:GET IT NOW

Stuff!-----

[spoiler=Story!]PART I OUTLINE

Prologue: White Fang forces assault Castle Schnee without warning, and Weiss is forced to fight her way out and flee to Vale with a small group of retainers. Her father remains behind for some reason.

Chapter 1: On the border of Vale, they are found and attacked by White Fang scouts. They must defeat the scouts quickly before the main force arrives.

Chapter 2: Weiss reaches Beacon but her location is betrayed by Mercury and Emerald. The White Fang infiltrate Beacon and Weiss and co must fight them off while protecting the students.Following the failed attack, Mercury and Emerald escape to report to the mysterious Cinder. Weiss decides to leave before reinforcements arrive. Ozpin gives her some supplies and sends some allies with her, but cannot do more.

Chapter 3-4: They decide that the best course of action is to seek refuge in Atlas. They require a guide to get through Forever Fall. Ruby offers to take them if they will help her find Yang in the forest. They enter the forest and fight off waves of Grimm, where they find Yang defending a wounded Blake.

Passing through the forest, they reach the home of a Gelb, a distant Schnee relative. He is creepy and unpleasant, but his castle is well fortified and he is definitely not White Fang. He tells them that Winter is currently in Atlas, but the Atlesian politicians are cowards and will never agree to help.

Chapter 5: Blake is uneasy and sneaks out of her room that night. She discovers that Gelb is enslaving Faunus and forcing them to fight captured Grimm for sport. With his crimes revealed, Gelb turns on the group, using the slaves as human shields.

Chapter 6: Faced with the reality of Faunus subjugation, Weiss wonders if the White Fang is justified. Blake reveals herself as a Faunus, and condemns the White Fangs disregard for innocents. Suddenly she tackles Weiss just as an arrow flies in the window. The army must hold the line against waves of White Fang troops. Finally when all hope seems lost, a squadron of Pegasus Knights led by Winter swoops in, followed closely by the Atlesian military smashing into the rear of the White Fang.

Chapter 7: Weiss and Winter return to Castle Schnee with the full might of Atlas behind them. While the Atlesians launch a feigned frontal assault, Weiss and co sneak into the castle via secret passages and take the White Fang by surprise. They defeat the White Fang Lieutenant and retake the castle.

Its too soon to celebrate, however. They soon discover that all of the Dust in the castle is gone, stolen by the White Fang. Was this their real motive all along? Winter has more bad news she promised to give Atlas huge amounts of Dust in exchange for their aid. The Atlesian senators are irate and take control of Castle Schnee.

Meanwhile, Ruby runs into a strange girl named Penny. In a darkened room, Cinder meets with one of the senators.

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Jesus Christ, Blaze's animation is fucking beautiful. Among the best I've ever seen in FE hacks.

As a fan of RWBY I'm looking to forward to what comes of this. With such an impressive animation presentation I'm sure you can get some people to help you make this hack have a more unique style, as so far it seems like the first chapters mirror the original FE8 chapters in regards to design and approach, though I might be looking at it wrong. Hope you intend to include Jaune, Nora and Lie as well though, but that's probably a given seeing Pyrrha's in it.

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Thanks for the offers guys, I have a feeling I'm going to need all the help I can get once this thing takes off. Meanwhile I don't have much of an update but I do plan to release a demo chapter very soon, so keep an eye out!

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Well, I've experienced what it was like to hack FE back in the dark ages when all we had was Nightmare and a hex editor (Translhextion for me). I doubt anything FE hacking has to offer could faze me now.

In fact, I still have my extremely cringey FE hacking folder complete with edgy self-insert (I replaced Kent because he was my fav).

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Well, if you don't consider it a playable patch, maybe you could consider it a showcase. It's demonstrating the technical and artistic progress.

I do have Part I planned out, with 8 chapters so far:[spoiler=Plot] PART I OUTLINEPrologue: White Fang forces assault Castle Schnee without warning, and Weiss is forced to fight her way out and flee to Vale with a small group of retainers. Her father remains behind for some reason.Chapter 1: On the border of Vale, they are found and attacked by White Fang scouts. They must defeat the scouts quickly before the main force arrives.Chapter 2: Weiss reaches Beacon but her location is betrayed by Mercury and Emerald. The White Fang infiltrate Beacon and Weiss and co must fight them off while protecting the students.Following the failed attack, Mercury and Emerald escape to report to the mysterious Cinder. Weiss decides to leave before reinforcements arrive. Ozpin gives her some supplies and sends some allies with her, but cannot do more.Chapter 3-4: They decide that the best course of action is to seek refuge in Atlas. They require a guide to get through Forever Fall. Ruby offers to take them if they will help her find Yang in the forest. They enter the forest and fight off waves of Grimm, where they find Yang defending a wounded Blake.Passing through the forest, they reach the home of a Gelb, a distant Schnee relative. He is creepy and unpleasant, but his castle is well fortified and he is definitely not White Fang. He tells them that Winter is currently in Atlas, but the Atlesian politicians are cowards and will never agree to help.Chapter 5: Blake is uneasy and sneaks out of her room that night. She discovers that Gelb is enslaving Faunus and forcing them to fight captured Grimm for sport. With his crimes revealed, Gelb turns on the group, using the slaves as human shields.Chapter 6: Faced with the reality of Faunus subjugation, Weiss wonders if the White Fang is justified. Blake reveals herself as a Faunus, and condemns the White Fangs disregard for innocents. Suddenly she tackles Weiss just as an arrow flies in the window. The army must hold the line against waves of White Fang troops. Finally when all hope seems lost, a squadron of Pegasus Knights led by Winter swoops in, followed closely by the Atlesian military smashing into the rear of the White Fang.Chapter 7: Weiss and Winter return to Castle Schnee with the full might of Atlas behind them. While the Atlesians launch a feigned frontal assault, Weiss and co sneak into the castle via secret passages and take the White Fang by surprise. They defeat the White Fang Lieutenant and retake the castle.Its too soon to celebrate, however. They soon discover that all of the Dust in the castle is gone, stolen by the White Fang. Was this their real motive all along? Winter has more bad news she promised to give Atlas huge amounts of Dust in exchange for their aid. The Atlesian senators are irate and take control of Castle Schnee.Meanwhile, Ruby runs into a strange girl named Penny. In a darkened room, Cinder meets with one of the senators.END OF PART I

What else would it require to make a "significant showcase and progress report"?

But to be honest, I'm more interested in your critique than which particular subforum this topic belongs in, so what did you think?

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I played your demo last night. I'll try to provide some feedback but it's hard when all I have to work with is one short chapter. Here goes:

Love the characters. Even after only one chapter I've fallen in love. I'm excited to see how they behave in the actual game.

The animations are also really good. I love the custom sprites.

The character balance is a bit weird, but since this is just a demo you may already have plans to fix this. The two biggest issues I think is your valkyrie and your assassin. It won't be an issue in the main game I feel, but the valkyrie did so much more damage than everyone else, and the assassin got a silencer on me which, in a short chapter like this, is beyond annoying.

Also the CGs. They took me by surprise and added a lot to story. Well done.

I'm happy to see that you're still working on this. Keep it up! I'm looking forward to the first main release!

- You have some custom weapons that look relevant to your hack in the animations. I'd love to see those in action! Or if they're not meant to be starting weapons, at least something that would be used to battle the actual bad guys.

- You've put out a bit of your story, which is fine. I'd like to see at least up to Chapter 2, so I can get a feel of what your hack is actually about (in terms of stuff like gameplay). It'll also give me a feel for your grasp on things like story flow through dialogue, what your maps look like, game balance and map events. However, I want to see more content than placeholders.

- If possible, please finish Ruby's animation. It looks like she's pretty important, and what little is shown of her attack looks absolutely amazing!

Critique of the demo:

- The full art in the pre-battle dialogue was a nice surprise!

- Ruby talks a lot. I'm not familiar with RWBY, so I'm not sure if this is part of her character (along with suggesting questionable things).

- The entire feel of the chapter is like FFTA's "chuck snowballs" chapter. I don't mind it, since this is a standalone.

- The only reason why I didn't get murdered outright is because FE8's AI is awful.

- Existent crit on enemies. No healing items. Choose one, and run with it. Both means that one badly-placed crit early-on makes the map a lot harder than it should be. FE's a strategy game at heart, not a lottery!

- While two sword users, a magic user, and a lancer isn't the worst enemy set-up, it's extremely awkward when I have three sword users and a lance user. WTA still hurts, and my hit rates on Pyrrah were pretty bad.

Once this hack makes it out of Concepts For Real:

- Post a topic in the Spriting subforum asking for assistance. Your mugs are really good for a concept, but they still have room for improvement. Those with better eyes may be able to suggest improvements for the battle animations, too. However, I think your art is ahead of everything else, so I'd hold off on this.

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Fair enough! Now that the demo's out of the way, work on chapters will begin in earnest.

The entire chapter is basically a reference to the food fight scene from the show. Much like this demo, he scene has little to do with anything and comes out of nowhere, and exists mainly for the creators to show off.

As for balance, if you position your units with triangle attacks in mind, you can win consistently.

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I'm not clear on the difference between those, but basically if you build your strategy around using triangle attacks then you can OH/ORKO Ren and Nora, and put a dent in Pyrrha. Jaune isn't much of a threat, but he can block you from taking out one of the others.

Triangle attacks were added partly because I need to emphasise that they're a team, partly because I want to show off critical animations. Still haven't figured out how to make the quotes show up, though.